This is a list of notable people who have, or had, the neurological condition synesthesia. Following that, there is a list of people who are often wrongly believed to have had synesthesia because they used it as a device in their art, poetry or music (referred to as pseudo-synesthetes). Finally, there is a short list of people who have received a speculative, posthumous diagnosis of synesthesia, or who are thought to possibly be synesthetes based on second or third hand sources. These are listed as "still under review" in the expectation that additional data will help to clarify their status.

"Though I have a very mild form of synesthesia (some people can taste words, see sounds, hear colors, or their colors/letters have personalities) I really do love having it. It's made me an insanely organized person and a time lord of epic proportions."

The song appears as light filament once I've cracked it. As long as I've been doing this, which is more than thirty-five years, I've never seen a duplicate song structure. I've never seen the same light creature in my life. Obviously similar chord progressions follow similar light patterns, but try to imagine the best kaleidoscope ever...

"He gets on with the broad strokes, textures and colors — that’s how he hears music, he’s got that synesthesia (a phenomenon where sounds have color), he says ‘make it really sad, like a rainy day, I want to hear thunder’ — and I get on with all the anal fiddly bits."

— Sister Bliss talking about her working relationship with Rollo Armstrong.[4]

American pianist and composer (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944).
It turns out that the 19th-century American classical composer Amy Beach had both perfect pitch and a set of colors for musical keys (musical keys → color). Here are two quotes from biographies:

"Other interesting stories about Amy’s musical personality and her astounding abilities as a prodigy are recounted in almost all previous biographical writings. One such story is Amy’s association of certain colors with certain keys. For instance, Amy might ask her mother to play the ‘purple music’ or the ‘green music.’ The most popular story, however, seems to be the one about Amy’s going on a trip to California and notating on staff paper the exact pitches of bird calls she heard."

"Amy’s mother encouraged her to relate melodies to the colors blue, pink, or purple, but before long Amy had a wider range of colors, which she associated with certain major keys. Thus C was white, F-sharp black, E yellow, G red, A green, A-flat blue, D-flat violet or purple, and E-flat pink. Until the end of her life she associated these colors with those keys."

American composer and conductor (August 25, 1918 - October 14, 1990). Timbre → color synesthesia, which he talked about during his "Young People's Concerts" series (the "What is orchestration" segment).[7]

Author of first book by a synesthete about synesthesia, "Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds". Grapheme-color, time unit-color and shape.

"Until one day," I said to my father, "I realized that to make an 'R', all I had to do was first write a 'P' and then draw a line down from its loop. And I was so surprised I could turn a yellow letter into an orange letter just by adding a line."

"I hear a note by one of the fellows in the band and it’s one color. I hear the same note played by someone else and it’s a different color. When I hear sustained musical tones, I see just about the same colors that you do, but I see them in textures. If Harry Carney is playing, D is dark blue burlap. If Johnny Hodges is playing, G becomes light blue satin."

"When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students."

"Sometimes, when I hear music, either as a performer or listener, a sheet of color suddenly comes across my vision. I don't know how else to describe it. I stop seeing what is actually around me in real time; the only thing I see are the colors. In fact, in a way, time actually stops during the period in which I see this sheet of color, and the colors vary according to the sound of whatever music I am hearing. For example, there is never one prescribed color that occurs every time I hear a particular harmony. Seeing a sheet of color doesn't happen every time I hear music; sometimes I see quick flashes of color. But when it happens, I feel as if I am somehow inside a miracle, the miracle of music. It's as if I have been transported to a new spiritual level in some way. It's an incredible experience, and I am always thankful when it happens!"[17]

Cartoonist, animation artist (born 1965). Music → color and movement.
Creator of the synesthetic taste sequences in Disney/Pixar's "Ratatouille" (2008) and of short film "Sensology" (6 minutes - Canada/USA 2010).

"Back in June 2006, Nancy and I were invited to the Vancouver International Jazz Festival by Coastal Jazz's manager of artistic programming, the amazing Rainbow Robert. That's where I heard piano improvisor, Paul Plimley for the first time. As Paul played, I closed my eyes and had an intense synesthetic experience.,"

French pianist (born November 7, 1969). Grimaud has colored numbers (graphemes → color) and sees music in colors (music → color).

"It was when I was eleven, and working on the F sharp major Prelude from the first book of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier - I perceived something that was very bright, between red and orange, very warm and vivid: an almost shapeless stain, rather like what you would see in the recording control-room if the image of sound were projected on a screen. But as numbers had always had colours for me - two was yellow, four was red, five was green - and as I have always found music evocative, I didn't regard this as unusual. It was more the idea of colour than colour itself. Certain pieces always project me into a particular colour-world. Sometimes it's a result of the tonality - C minor is black, and D minor, the key that has always been closest to me, being the most dramatic and poignant is blue."

(Color → sound / sound → color) Catalan-raised, British-born[20]contemporary artist and musician (born 27 July 1982) best known for his self-extended ability to hear colours and to perceive colours outside the ability of human vision.[21] He is the first person in the world to have a cyborg antenna implanted in his skull. The antenna allows him to hear the frequencies of the colors around him and to receive colour sounds directly into his skull from external devices via wifi.[22]

"A thought struck me: if my new album sounds this good on a walkman, what would Roxy Music sound like? A mere two years later I bought one and found out. However, on a train, a few years later still, I had negative synaesthesia eating a bacon sandwich and listening to a solo Ferry album, which turned me vegetarian."

Artist (born July 9, 1937). Music → color.
Hockney sees synesthetic colors to musical stimuli. In general, this does not show up in his painting or photography artwork too much. However, it is a common underlying principle in his construction of stage sets for various ballets and operas, where he bases the background colors and lighting upon his own seen colors while listening to the music of the theater piece he is working on.[24]

Musician and founder of the Canadian Synesthesia Association. Timbre → shape.[25][26][27][28]

For me it’s all based on the timbres, so a trumpet, a piano, even if they’re playing the same note they make a different sound, and those sounds produce different shapes for me. But it’s also all noise, whether it’s a subway train or a horn honking, I see it as an abstract shape in front of me, or behind me, right around where ever the sound source is.

I would say the softer, more intimate songs -- there's 'Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel), 'And So It Goes,' 'Vienna' and another called, 'Summer, Highland Falls' -- when I think of different types of melodies, which are slower or softer, I think in terms of blues or greens...When I [see] a particularly vivid color, it's usually a strong melodic, strong rhythmic pattern that emerges at the same time. When I think of these songs, I think of vivid reds, oranges and golds.

Certain lyrics in some songs I've written, I have to follow a vowel color. A strong vowel ending, like an A or an E or an I, I associate with a very blue or a very vivid green...I think reds I associate more with consonants, a T or a P or an S. It's a harder sound. These [letters] are what I associate with reds and oranges.

British Painter (born 1975). Music → color.
Known as The Music Painter, Kilford's paintings are the physical representation of music based on the colours he sees when he hears music. His paintings are created by either painting live alongside musicians during their performances or in his studio where he either creates paintings based on individual tracks or is visited by musicians who perform as Kilford paints. Kilford has painted live alongside a wide range of musicians including Paul Weller, Robert Plant, Damon Albarn, Black Eyed Peas, Brian Eno, Deep Purple, Status Quo and The Charlatans amongst others.[33]

"With the little bit of sight he possessed, Brooks was unable to read or to identify objects, and lead sheets remained a forever closed door to him, but he was able to differentiate colors. I remember when he first told us that in his mind’s eye every musical note was a different color and that the scale resembled a rainbow. He fingered a C on the piano, explaining, ‘This note is red.’ He hit a D. ‘This one is dark blue.’ He hit an F. ‘This is yellow.’ His finger wandered to a G. ‘This one is light blue …’"

"When Liszt first began as Kapellmeister in Weimar (1842), it astonished the orchestra that he said: 'O please, gentlemen, a little bluer, if you please! This tone type requires it!' Or: 'That is a deep violet, please, depend on it! Not so rose!' First the orchestra believed Liszt just joked; more later they got accustomed to the fact that the great musician seemed to see colors there, where there were only tones."

"When we first started Tennis Court we just had that pad playing the chords, and it was the worst textured tan colour, like really dated, and it made me feel sick, and then we figured out that pre chorus and i started the lyric and the song changed to all these incredible greens overnight!!!"

Jazz pianist, composer, radio personality, associates keys with colors.[39] She has stated that: "You see, nobody ever told me it was difficult to play in certain keys, like F sharp. Personally, I find C a hard key. It's very sterile to me. Somehow all the keys seem to have colors and textures. I love B and E and A and F sharp. I actually associate them with colors, but Jim Hall, the guitarist, does too, so I don't feel that ridiculous about it."[40] In another quote: "The key of D is daffodil yellow, B major is maroon, and B flat is blue."[41]

Composer and organist (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992). Chordal structure → color.
Olivier Messiaen was self-admittedly a synesthete, as is quite well detailed in his own writings and in interviews. Many of his compositions, such as Oiseaux Exotiques, L'ascension, and Couleurs de la cite celeste, are directly based upon his, in a sense, trying to "produce pictures" via sound, writing specific notes to produce specific color sequences and blends.[43]

Do you see music? - "Oh God yes! For me, piano is a complete sensory experience. For me every key is a different colour. For me, the year 1972 is a very brown, yellow, green colour that corresponds to the D minor chord..."

Her surviving niece, the author Mona Rae Miracle, confirms Mailer's impression to synesthete journalist Maureen Seaberg in her book Tasting the Universe, although she admits they never called it synesthesia in their time: "Synesthesia is a term Marilyn and I were unaware of; in the past, we simply spoke of the characteristic experiences with terms such as 'extraordinary sensitivity' and/or 'extraordinary imagination.'"[31]p. 115

"A few years ago, I mentioned to a friend that I remembered phone numbers by their colour. He said "So you're a synesthete!" I hadn't heard of synesthesia (which means something close to sense-fusion') – I only knew that numbers seemed naturally to have colours: five is blue, two is green, three is red… And music has colours too: the key of C# minor is a sharp, tangy yellow, F major is a warm brown..."

"fine case of colored hearing. Perhaps 'hearing' is not quite accurate, since the color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a of the English alphabet (and it is this alphabet I have in mind farther on unless otherwise stated) has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and r (a sooty rag bag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o take care of the whites. I am puzzled by my French on which I see as the brimming tension-surface of alcohol in a small glass. Passing on to the blue group, there is steely x, thundercloud z, and huckleberry k. Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see q as browner than k, while s is not the light blue of c, but a curious mixture of azure and mother-of-pearl. Adjacent tints do not merge, and diphthongs do not have special colors of their own, unless represented by a single character in some other language (thus the fluffy-gray, three-stemmed Russian letter that stands for sh [Ш], a letter as old as the rushes of the Nile, influences its English representation)."
" ... In the green group, there are alder-leaf f, the unripe apple of p, and pistachio t. Dull green, combined somehow with violet, is the best I can do for w. The yellows comprise various e's and i's, creamy d, bright-golden y, and u, whose alphabetical value I can express only by 'brassy with an olive sheen.' In the brown group, there are the rich rubbery tone of soft g, paler j, and the drab shoelace of h. Finally, among the reds, b has the tone called burnt sienna by painters, m is a fold of pink flannel, and today I have at last perfectly matched v with 'Rose Quartz' in Maerz and Paul's Dictionary of Color. The word for rainbow, a primary, but decidedly muddy, rainbow, is in my private language the hardly pronounceable: kzspygv"

If I play a B-flat on the G string, I would say that the color for me is probably deep forest green. And if I play an A on the E string, that would be red. If I play the next B, if I look at it right now, I would say that it's yellow.

— From an interview in Tasting the Universe by Maureen Seaberg with Itzhak Perlman[31]p.53

Composer (May 27, 1822 - June 24 or 25, 1882). Timbre → color.
In 1855, the composer Joachim Raff "declared that the sounds of instruments produced color impressions of various kinds. Thus the sound of a flute produced the sensation of intense azure blue; of the hautboy [oboe], yellow; cornet, green; trumpet, scarlet; the French horn, purple; and the flageolet [bassoon], grey. The clearest and most distinct shades were those evoked by the high notes" (Krohn 1892 : 22). It is unknown whether Raff was a synaesthete; he may well have been, but this small set of colored timbres does not provide enough information, without more direct claims as to where the correspondences originate from.[48]

Composer (January 15, 1964). Has described perceiving music in colors and shapes, and visual arts as sounds and timbres.

"For me, music belongs to the visual arts. When I think about new music, I „see“ it. Instead of sounds, I imagine shapes, colours, surfaces, values etc., and only when I start the proper planning of a new work I try to change these things into sounds. However, the end result is always pure music.
The same happens the other way round: when I see an impressive painting or a sculpture or practically any kind of visual artwork, I „hear“ it. It has happened to me more than often that when I‘ve seen for example a fine sculpture, its form and shape immediately brings strong sounds into my mind. I guess this is one form of synesthesia."

Composer (March 6, 1844 – June 8, 1908). Musical keys → color.
Rimsky-Korsakov synesthetically experienced colors for musical keys (musical keys →color). For example, for him, the key of C major was white, and the key of B major was a gloomy dark blue with a steel shine.[50]

Russian journalist and mnemonist (1886–1958). Multiple synesthesiae. As the subject of a book-length case study, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book About a Vast Memory, by neuropsychologist Alexander Luria, Shereshevskii was named only with the initial "S". Luria details Sherevskii's fivefold synesthesia, how he used his synesthesia to perform feats of memory, including memorizing complex mathematical formulae, huge matrices and even poems in foreign languages, and later in life, how Shereshevskii was burdened by his inability to forget even the most trivial details.

"For him there existed a strange, mysterious connection between sound and color, between the most secret perceptions of the eye and ear. Everything he saw produced a corresponding impression on his ear – every impression of sound was transferred and fixed as color on the retina of his eye and thence to his memory. And this he thought as natural, with as good reason as those who did not possess this faculty called him crazy or affectedly original."
"For this reason he only spoke of this in the strictest confidence and under a pledge of silence. 'For otherwise they will make fun of me!'"

French Singer/Songwriter from Quimper/France, birth date unknown. Music → color. In an interview with the French website Cocy [55], she states that she hears music in colours and that the colours inspire her as a composer:

Artist (born 1943) who founded the American Synesthesia Association. Steen experiences colors while viewing letters and numbers (grapheme-color synesthesia), music (timbre-color synesthesia), and (touch-color synesthesia) in response to acupuncture and pain.[58][59]

"So this isn't really news but it's come to my attention that I have a common form of synesthesia known as grapheme to color synesthesia. It is (according to Wikipedia....who are always right...right?) 'A neurologically-based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in secondary sensory or cognitive pathway.' The shorthand is basically that your senses are crossed. Like some synthetics can 'Taste' colors or 'See' sounds. In the case of graphame to color synthetics it basically means that one interprets written information as 'Colored.' For instance the letter 'F' for me is green. When I see it written in black I obviously still notice that it is black but it 'Feels' green. Or 'S' is red. Most of the alphabet and numbers from 1-10 have some sort of associated color to me. It's ultimately totally trivial but I found it fascinating that this is a documented phenomenon and not just me being a weirdo."

"Death of a Bachelor was a lot of bright yellows, bright reds. But it was all very Sixties, like if you've ever seen the Doors performance where there are actual doors hanging above smoke screens and the smoke is coming up. It's very Easter-ish, soft pastel colors. It's soft but bright. It's like glow-y and there are yellows and reds and dark teals that are still popping...But sometimes it's colors, sometimes it's a tornado of words and I pick one out. Sometimes it's shapes. A song could be a square and go in that perfect order. Sometimes it's a pyramid that turns into rhombus. But there are no rules and I love that. It comes from an emotional state."

— Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco interview with Rolling Stone, January 15, 2016.[62]

Musician best known as one of the founding members of Animal Collective (born April 24, 1979). Associates sounds with visuals. When asked if he had synesthesia, Tare responded, "Yeah! Totally!"

"I feel like I think about music in such visual terms that it’s hard [to not consider the visual elements]. It’s not something that I really turn on or off. It’s like even listening to a record…I mean that’s kind of why I got into music. It has always taken on a whole visual atmosphere to me."

"Tenberken had impaired vision almost from birth, but was able to make out faces and landscapes until she was 12. As a child in Germany, she had a particular predilection for colours, and loved painting, and when she was no longer able to decipher shapes and forms she could still use colours to identify objects. Tenberken has, indeed an intense synaesthesia.
"'As far back as I can remember,' she writes, 'numbers and words have instantly triggered colours in me ... number four, for example [is] gold. Five is light green. Nine is vermillion... Days of week, as well as months, have their colours, too.' Her synaesthesia has persisted and been intensified, it seems, by her blindness"

Rapper, record producer, director and fashion designer (born June 8, 1977). Music → color.[70][71][72]

"Yeezus, though, was the beginning of me as a new kind of artist. Stepping forward with what I know about architecture, about classicism, about society, about texture, about synesthesia—the ability to see sound—and the way everything is everything and all these things combine, and then starting from scratch with Yeezus."

Bob Dylan (May 24, 1941), musician, sound to color based on this quote from "Celebritytypes": "I don't know if I call myself a poet or not. ... It's more of a visual type of thing for me. I could picture the color of the song." [78]

Timbaland "See when I do music, I see it in colors. I see it in stages. I see the world, I see the people as colors."[83]

Devin Townsend, Canadian musician, frequently relates sound to colors and numbers in interviews and demonstrations.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889–1951) Possible case of grapheme - colour synaesthesia, based on this quote from the book Zettel: "It’s just like the way some people do not understand the question 'What color has the vowel A for you?'"

^Ekman, Karl. 1938. Jean Sibelius: His life and personality. Translated from the Finnish by Edward Birse. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

^She was diagnosed as a child with synesthesia, a condition that makes you experience sensations together, rather than separately, as most people do. In Sivertsen’s case, this means she sees colours when she hears music. "It’s wonderful," she says. "And it probably saved my life a couple of times - life looks so rich with patterns and colours." Times Online Interview with Ida Maria

^van Gogh, Vincent. "Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh The Hague, 31 and 2 Dec-Jan 1882". WebExhibits. Retrieved 15 December 2013. This is also the case with Black and White, it is the same after all - one must be able to go from the highest light to the deepest shadow, and this with only a few simple ingredients. Some artists have a nervous hand at drawing, which gives their technique something of the sound peculiar to a violin, for instance, Lemud, Daumier, Lançon - others, for example, Gavarni and Bodmer, remind one more of piano playing. Do you feel this too? - Millet is perhaps a stately organ.